Albin Egger-Lienz - Buy or sell works
29 January 1868, Stribach (Austria) – 4 November 1926, St. Justina (Italy)
The Austrian painter Albin Egger-Lienz was known for his monumental, decorative oil paintings. The Vienna Künstlerhaus honoured him with the Grand State Medal in Gold for his picture The Cross in 1899.
Albin Egger-Lienz’s father was the church painter Georg Egger. Albin studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1884–1893 and subsequently worked as an independent artist. He joined the Hagenbund and the Vienna Secession in Vienna. During World War I, Egger-Lienz served in the army only briefly due to health problems, working as a war painter for some time. After the war, he was offered the position of a professor at the Vienna Academy, which he declined. He received an honorary doctor’s degree from the University of Innsbruck shortly before his death.
Egger-Lienz primarily worked in oil. As a student, his influences included his teacher, the history painter Wilhelm Lindenschmit, and Franz von Defregger. He later drew his inspirations from the art of the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler, amongst others, which paved the way for Egger-Lienz’s monumental decorative compositions. The painting Finale from 1918 shows the artist’s embrace of German Expressionism in his later work.
Egger-Lienz explored existential themes in his art such as grief, death, and growing and perishing. From 1906 onwards, he frequently painted the subject of the Dance of Death.
Dorotheum sold an 1809 version of Dance of Death at auction in June 2021 for €1,031,930 – at the time, the most ever paid for a work by Egger-Lienz.